An automatic needle placement machine in the form of an articulated-arm robot, which performs the placement and removal of needles on and from a needle board of a nonwoven needle machine, is known from WO 2012/139761 A, wherein the robot combines a needle removal apparatus and a needle placement apparatus with one another and combines the functions thereof in itself.
Further, it is known that needle boards can be fitted with needles manually, wherein a placing tool is used, which receives a larger number of pre-aligned needles and is handled by a human operator.